Goodbye, Mr Marsh?
by robert3A-SN
Summary: Stan's parents plan to move to California after his dad takes a job there, and now Stan has to figure out how to spend his potential last moments with his girlfriend Wendy and his best friend Kyle- and face the heartbreak of having to say goodbye to them.


Another writers note: Thanks to JusSonic, mesfab, Chucker, nekuyr2004, Loogie, and Corporal Katz for giving me the reviews I wanted last time. Though maybe it helped that I mentioned you all by name in the last writers note, everyone I mentioned except for Brown Sugar and dramqueen1 were the ones that responded. I'm glad I got more reviews than I did recently, but here I am again pleading for reviews once more. And even more seriously than before. This time, I really really would like everyone who regularly reads my fics and maybe some people that haven't to review or send some kind of feedback for this story, I seriously want as many people as humanly possible to tell me what they think of this one. Why? Because this is a radically different South Park story for me, the last ones had drama and sentiment but this is by far my most dramatic, sentimental SP fic ever and one I specifically designed to create a poignent, even sad storyline that will make you feel bad for the main characters involved. And for that, I really want to hear a lot of feedback. I wanna hear from my usual group of fans of course, and from people that are fans but haven't reviewed my stuff or have reviewed it once or twice[Kenny's Goddess, H.C.G, deadkenny, and Golden 0074 to name a few], or just from as many people as is possible since I know a few of you may be busy or have other things to do, I understand that. I suppose it might be too much to ask for more than 6 or 7 reviews, though it would be nice, but I guess I can't force all of you to review it if you don't want to. But read it and review it if possible, or if you don't wanna post an offical review send some kind of comments to me if you can. I'm this hung up on comments because I think this one may be my best SP fic, as it deals with a theme some of us may have gone through in our childhood[though I didn't]- the difficulty of having to leave behind the childhood friends you've shared your most precious memories with, and the difficulty in trying to spend your last moments with them and having to possibly say goodbye to them forever. A dillemma that you'll see Stan Marsh go through in the next half hour or however long it takes for you to read this. Even though some people may not like that it's written in a novel format, please try to read it anyway. That's all the bitching and moaning I have for today, now on to the show.  
******************************************************  
"We're WHAT?!" Stan Marsh asked his parents one Tuesday afternoon at his house, hoping he had heard wrong about what they just told him. His dad Randy Marsh, however, soon proved him wrong.  
  
"I said I got a call this morning from a big geologist institute in California, they said they were so impressed with my work here that they want to hire me for a cushy new job there. And after I talked it over with your mother we agreed to take it. We leave for California on Sunday!"  
  
"We're WHAT?!" Stan answered, trying to convince himself one more time that his dad was joking. His mother Sharon wrecked it for him though.  
  
"I don't think you need to say that again Stan, your father spoke loud enough. And he has the right to, people in California are so impressed with him that they are willing to pay him big money for him to work there. So not only will we get to live in a warm place, we'll get to live in a big house to go with it!"  
  
"But...but....but Dad hasn't even had to deal with any earth problems for a long time, not since the spontaneous combustion thing!" Stan answered.  
  
"Yep, that's what impressed them. Since everything else destroys this town except the environment, they think I've done a good job keeping it that way." Sharon then followed up her husbands reasoning. "That's right, and California is where the big natural disasters are, so they know their stuff! Plus we'll be getting away from all the craziness and killer protests and monsters in South Park, there's no monsters in California."  
  
"Except Shaquille O'Neal of course." Randy chuckled at his weak celebrity dig, though Stan was in no laughing mood. Seeing this, Randy started with another pro California statement. "Look Stan, California is a great place to live, it's warm all the time so you don't have to wear your coat and hat, there's bound to be no kids like that Cartman around, and you can't possibly have any new teachers crazier than Mr Garrison! This is a great move for us!"  
  
Stan's bullying, brace wearing sister Shelly then came by to agree with him. "That's right turd, all the best beaches and all the hot guys are there, so don't bother me for the next few days while I pack up my sunscream and get some new tiny bikinis!"  
  
"Geez, you wanna scare every guy there?" Stan muttered.  
  
"What did you say, turd?!" Shelly yelled. Stan stammered to think of a way to rhyme his insult like he did for Ms Crabtree, but Randy spoke before he could think of something. "That's enough Shelly, go do your shopping stuff. Stan, you should probably start packing up too and save the things you wanna take with you. Like I said, we leave on Sunday so you have about 4 days to get ready."  
  
Stan still looked a bit too shocked to follow his father's suggestion, so Sharon tried to get him riled up again. "Stan honey, we wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think this was the best thing for all of us, including you. This is a great opportunity for us to live a better, bigger, and much safer life, no monsters or evil celebrites will attack us every week there."  
  
"But I thought California was nothing but celeberties.", said Stan.  
  
"Yes, but you don't hear reports of them destroying a town every week like they do here. And really, aside from a few things there really isn't that much to miss about this town. Besides, you always complain that everyone here is stupid or jerks or stupid jerks, we'll be away from that too. Does that make you feel a little better?", asked Sharon. Stan nodded a little bit and then headed up to his room to think things over more clearly.  
******************************************************  
Mom's right, Stan thought. There really wasn't much to miss in South Park except for a few hangouts and the occasional days where Mr Garrison and Mr Slave didn't give sex ed lessons. And except for Chef, all of the adults were stupid, aggravating people who for all their efforts to keep kids out of trouble, caused far more stupid trouble themselves. His fellow classmates weren't exactly geniuses either. Well, neither was Stan but he sure was smarter than some of the kids in the background and the annoying Melvins.  
  
He sure wouldn't miss Pip and his Frenchy antics or Tweek's constant worry that today the underpants gnomes would kill him, and Timmy and Jimmy could get really annoying after a while. Butters wasn't as bad as he may have thought in the past- it was pretty cool how he kicked Evil Butters ass and that he actually had a kinda girlfriend from out of town- but he wouldn't really miss him that badly. He'd miss Kenny more, but he probably wouldn't lose that much sleep over not seeing him again. And Cartman? Oh boy, did that make California look real good all of a sudden. There was no Cartman to call him a hippy and a freak and a hippy asshole freak there, that was for sure. Having a whole week, a whole month, or several years straight of hearing no Cartman insults sounded really good to him.  
  
"Yeah, they're right! Maybe there's no snow there, but I'm sure the kids there have some cool California games I can play and there can't be any Cartmans there to stop that! This might just kick ass after all, wait till I tell Kyle and.....and....."  
  
And in that one second, the Marshes move to California became the most awful thing imaginable to Stan. He had just thought of several reasons why it would be good to leave South Park, but for all those reasons, there were just two reasons why South Park was great to him. But why did these two reasons have to be that great? He could even name those reasons by name.  
  
Kyle and Wendy.  
  
For all the friends he knew that were either guys in the background, friends he really didn't like, or assholes like Cartman, there was one kid who stayed his best friend, and sometimes his only real true friend, the whole way through- Kyle. His best friend for as long as he could remember, and often the only kid he didn't mind going on adventures all over the world with. They'd gone everywhere together, played all kinds of meaningless kid games together, and even saved the world together. Of course there were times that they weren't on such friendly terms- the Ice Man thing and the Blanetology cult incident for a few things- but they patched things up everytime. He even remembered when Kyle became sick from holistic medicine and Cartman wouldn't give him his kidney, and he could recall how much he cried when he feared that he'd never see Kyle again. He also couldn't help but remember when he was aging rapidly and Kyle was forced to be Cartman's slave so Cartman wouldn't blab his condition to the press. Apperantly Cartman made Kyle do all kinds of stupid shit and some really sick shit too, but Kyle did it anyway only because he thought it would help make sure Stan would get better. He also heard that when the press did show up, Kyle almost killed Cartman because he thought he called the press[though it was that big douche John Edward that did]and then he cried in his Mom's arms because he was sure Stan was going to die. No matter how cool those California kids were, none of them could possibly be such a great friend that they'd be willing to put up with someone like Cartman like that just for him, that's for sure.  
  
So that was one really depressing reason why moving would suck ass after all, friends like Kyle don't just show up in your life twice. It would really suck to not see him again....and then he remembered that not seeing the other most important kid he knew would suck more ass than anything that ever sucked ass before. At that point, it almost hurt him too much to know that useful fact.  
  
Wendy....  
  
The only girl he'd ever really liked. The girl who was probably the most kind and caring person he'd ever met, despite her regrets about often acting less than perfect in the past. The only girl who made him throw up everytime she talked to him, and then just made him throw up every time she tried to be romantic with him. Hell, he almost died trying to impress her by taking that drug that was supposed to make him too mature to throw up on her, but it almost made him too old to live. Still, after that was taken care of he had somehow found the courage to stop throwing up, and that meant he could finally forfill his dreams of actually saying he loved her and then get to kiss her. Of course back then, he even threw up before he was even able to think about that, but that didn't matter.  
  
What did matter was that these last few months had some of the best times he ever had, all thanks to Wendy. Now that he was finally cured he could actually hang out with her, include her in some of the games he liked to play and she could let him do some of her favorite things with her[of course he had to make sure no guys were watching that so Cartman couldn't let him have it the next day]And best of all, there was no more need to worry about if he was gonna mess things up or if she was gonna get mad for a dumb mistake he made or anything. They had been able to work out a lot of issues that got in their way in the past, and with that out of the way, they were able to have fun. And what could be more fun for Stan than to actually be able to hold her hand, innocently put his arm around her at the right time, and top it all off by further asking himself why the hell he was so nervous in the past to do something so wonderful as to kiss her- right before he shut off his brain to enjoy the sweet touch of Wendy's lips. Yuck. 9 year olds were not supposed to say something that sick, yet alone think it, but that was how Wendy made him feel now, who was he to stop it?  
  
"And now I'm gonna have to give up all that..."  
  
Now Stan was convinced that this move was the worst thing that could have ever happened to him. Kyle and Wendy were the two greatest kids he'd ever known and the two kids he had shared more with than anything. One was the best friend he'd ever had and might ever have, and the other was someone he was looking forward to being with for a very long time. And now he had to give up all that and maybe never see them again? Especially now, when he had finally gotten somewhere with Wendy?   
  
Jesus Christ, how could this move have gotten so bad so quick? And of course he remembered just then that Kyle, Wendy, Cartman, and Kenny were gonna come over after school and it was after school now, so he'd actually have to face them in a few minutes. "What am I gonna tell them?" Stan thought. "How the hell am I gonna tell them that I'm going away forever?"  
******************************************************  
Stan finally came back downstairs a while later and in the nick of time too, for the guys then showed up on Stan's doorstep. Stan let them in while still in his own dreamworld. Not even Wendy's trademark greeting of "Hiii Stan" in that sing song voice of hers could snap him out of it, and neither did Cartman's trademark hippie jokes after that. All he could hear was his own thoughts asking how the hell he was gonna tell them that he'd be going away. And how would they react? The only guarantee was that Cartman would do a little dance and celebrate that there was one less pussy around, but he expected that. But how would Kyle and Wendy react, would they cry, would they protest, or would they just say nothing? Well he had to tell them sooner or later, might as well do it now? But how?  
  
"Stan? Hello, Stan, anyone home?" Kyle yelled to snap his friend outta his world and back to reality. "Okay, you're awake, good. I wouldn't feel good beating you at Okama Gamespehere if you weren't at your best."  
  
"What makes you think you'll beat him Jew boy, the only thing good about coming here all the time is beating his ass in Gamesphere, without that there's no way I'd be here again." Cartman replyed, of course being ignorant to the fact that in 4 days, he really wouldn't be able to come here again because Stan wouldn't be here. Finally Stan came up with a desprate idea to get this news through to him and everyone.  
  
"Hey guys, before we get to that, I got a great game we can play first! Everyone stand in a straight line!" The guys and Wendy were a bit puzzled by this game suggestion, but they did it anyway. "Are we doing a lunch line game? If we are there'd better be punch and pie!" Cartman said to absolutly no one's surprise, though of course Stan was trying not to pay attention and get this over with quicker. "Okay, now for the next part of the game. Whoever is going to be living in South Park after Sunday, take one step forward." Everyone but Stan stepped forward, and now Stan could only hope that they would figure out why he hadn't gone up by themselves. Unfortunatly, Kyle sure didn't get it.  
  
"Hey Stan, why didn't you go forward? Is this still part of the game? I know, I'll bet this is some kind of kidnapping game where we have to rescue you from someone!"  
  
"I get to be the kidnapper, and you'd better not save him before I get done torturing him or I'll kick you all in the nuts!" yelled Cartman.  
  
"I don't even have nuts, so you couldn't stop me from kicking yours if you lay a finger on my Stan!" cried out Wendy, not knowing that that defense of her boyfriend wasn't making this any easier for Stan. Not that Cartman would have paid any attention if he cared as he was still into the game. "Oh, what are you gonna do about it, huh, shoot me into the sun? I have friends in high places in the POX network now and I could give them a few great ideas for reality shows in return for them stopping your evil plot!"  
  
"Guys, calm down. First we have to find a place for Stan to be rescued from. Then we need to make up things we can use to save him, and then figure out what we're gonna do with him after we save him. But it's not like it's gonna take that long after he's gone for us to see him again." With Kyle's last comment, Stan finally snapped at the cruel irony of the situation. "Yes it is gonna take that long, Goddammit, I'm moving away!!"  
  
The others stood still for a second before Kyle spoke up. "Nah, I think you being kidnapped is a better game idea, besides then Cartman can be the kidnap guy and that'll make him shut his flabby mouth up for once." Cartman would have gone on with his "I'm not fat, I'm big boned" response for the 1,534'th time before Stan cut in. "It's not a game Kyle, I'm really moving away. I'll be going on Sunday."  
  
"Stan, if you're gonna make terrible game suggestions like that, then maybe we should play something else." Of course Wendy had to say that and make it even harder for Stan to tell her that in 4 days, she might never be able to come up with game ideas with him again. Fortunatly, his parents then came over to clear things up.  
  
"I'm afraid it's not a game, Wendy. We really are moving to California on Sunday, and I'm the one who took the job there so I would know about this." After Randy finished, Kenny finally spoke for the first time today.  
  
"{You got your parents to play too? Well screw that, I'm not playing with them, I wanna play with a fun parent like Cartman's Mom!}" Before Cartman could figure out the crude meaning behind that, Stan tried one last time to get the message across. "This isn't part of the game, there is no game, I'm moving! Why would I make up something like that, Cartman's sick enough to do that but I'm not!" And finally, with that comparison between Stan's idea of fun and Cartman's, the kids finally realized that Stan was telling the truth. Stan was really moving to California in 4 days.  
  
Once that finally got through, none of the 4 kids could really say anything or even think straight- although that didn't stop Wendy from speaking out despite the fact she was thinking less straighter than anyone. And her targets were Stan's parents.  
  
"How could you do this?! He had finally stopped throwing up around me and he was just getting really good at kissing me! How could you do this now?! How could you do this at all?!!" At the very least, Wendy was composed enough to run out and leave before they could see the beginning of her all out crying spree.  
  
On the other hand, Kyle couldn't even move, much less cry. Not that Stan could see it, because at this point he couldn't even bear to look his best friend in the eye. How could you possibly face someone who's been such a big part of your life after telling him that soon you'd be leaving him forever? Stan was obviously not going to figure that out right this second. And even if he did, Kyle wasn't in the right state of mind to hear him, since the news was still too much of a shock to him. He then decided to take his shock someplace else as he went out of the house, and he was too much of a zombie right now to make as emotional an exit as Wendy did.  
  
Cartman and Kenny followed them a second later, and to Stan's surprise Cartman didn't make any jokes before he left. But knowing Cartman, he'd blab the news to the whole town and get his digs in after that- yep, he could hear Cartman telling Kenny to get the word out already. Now he'd have to spend his last three days in school being reminded of the move, as if having to be nervous around Kyle and Wendy at school wouldn't be bad enough. The same question he asked to himself a while earlier kept running through his mind without even stopping to get water- how can you even face the two people that have meant more to you than anything after telling them that after Sunday, you might never see them again? What could he possibly say or do then? Besides, Wendy might be too hysterical to talk and Kyle was too much of a zombie to talk to now, how could he possibly face them after making them feel like that?  
  
One thing was for sure- he had never thought a span of 4 days could be so hard to get through until today.  
******************************************************  
The 4 day long waiting period began on Wednesday for Stan. And in his opinion, standing at the bus stop with Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny with barely a word spoken between them wasn't a good start. Of course when they got to school and saw everyone, they had all heard about the move from Cartman and kept asking Stan about it. Cartman had just started to brag about breaking this scoop and was gonna ask for due payment from it until Mr Garrison and Mr Slave came in. At least hearing some of Mr Garrisons rantings or the rantings of whatever alter ego he was today would be a distraction for Stan- but guess what he wanted to talk about.  
  
"Okay children, by now we've all heard the big news that I've driven one of our students away from the flock, so to speak. And to that student, we must say just because you're moving away doesn't mean we can't still get to you." started Mr Garrison before Mr Hat broke in.  
  
"That's right Mr Garrison, but we can still have fun with him before he goes, we got three days to dig up any skeletons in his closet left that we can have fun with."  
  
"Ey, I exploited the news of hippie boy leaving first, if you're gonna take advantage of it you gotta get through me first! But if you're wiling to pay for the priviledge, then we can talk." answered the ever shameless and greedy Cartman. But Mr Garrison just let his other alter ego, Professor Chaos, do the talking for him.  
  
"Maybe, or maybe we can learn to share, or on the other hand we could take back our little deal. Those crazy kids you freed from Michael Jackson's bony grasp on Mothers Day were taken out of your hair thanks to me and I can easily put them back in."  
  
"But Mr Garrison's been having so much fun with those kids down at the local abandoned warehouse every night and they love him. Not that he cares about my opinion lately since he's left me dry lately, Jesus Christ!" whined Mr Slave with his usual none too subtle reference to our Lord. To which Professor Chaos replyed, "Well maybe me and Mr Hat can talk him into letting someone else join in, unless you like interrupting our talks too much to do it!" "Ooh, no problem P.C." And with that Mr Slave shut up to let Mr Garrison and his friends talk with Cartman the rest of the period over who would get to joke about Stan at what time.  
  
Well at least thinking about these freaks is less stressful than thinking about people I like, Stan thought. He had to remind himself of that the rest of the day, during lunch time and during the rest of the school day. During that time he wasn't able to bring himself to talk to either Kyle or Wendy, but at least Wendy was the only one of them to object to Garrison/Hat/Chaos's negotiations with Cartman- she even sounded a tiny bit less hysterical this time. As was the case yesterday, Wendy was more obviously hurt over Stan's mood, and Stan liked to think that Kyle wasn't saying anything or even trying to talk to Stan because he was still shocked. Pleasent thoughts had been hard to come by for Stan in the last 24 hours, so he'd take whatever good thoughts he could get.  
  
Back at home, Stan's family was already making preperations for the move. Randy and Sharon were already starting to sort out their things, Shelly was still shopping for bikinis to impress the surfer boys, and Grandpa Marsh was predictibly looking forward to running into one of those killer natural disasters. Stan tried to weed out some of the things he could leave behind, but he wasn't really putting his mind into it of course.  
  
He couldn't do this for the next three days though. He couldn't just ignore Kyle and Wendy like he was able to do today, sooner or later Kyle would snap out of his silence and Wendy would undoubtly want to confront him too. Those two were too important to him to just ignore right up until Sunday afternoon. But what really was there left to say? What could they do that could possible make any difference now? And all the things they'd probably be able to get in together were long goodbyes that would make all of them feel even worse. So wasn't this ignorance just a way of sparing more sadness than there already was?  
  
Jesus, and to think Stan thought Kyle was crazy for questioning every little thing after he found out the Tooth Fairy was made up. Half of him almost wished the next 3 days would go by quick so he could get out and end it already. But again, he couldn't just ignore them like that, eventually they'd come to him. God, he needed to stop thinking for a while, so Stan figured he'd get the best medicine for turning your brain off, old Terrance and Phillip videos, to distract him from all this debating for a while. Then he'd go back to overworking his brain for the last few hours before he went to sleep. One day almost down, three to go.  
******************************************************  
The next day at school, Mr Garrison's lessons went on while he wasn't using up his court designated time to make his last jokes at Stan. He and Cartman had taken all day to decide that Garrison would get to him before lunch, Cartman would get him after lunch, and Professor Chaos and Mr Hat would take whatever time was left. Not that they were using any new material to joke about anyway, but those four could waste time better than anyone, so why stop them?  
  
In any case, once Garrison's time was up the kids went to lunch. And like yesterday, Stan wasn't chatting away with Kyle or any of his friends at the lunch line, he just got his food from Chef and went to his table without saying a word. However, the silence was interrupted by Chef when he came over to the table.  
  
"Hello there children! Stan, I forgot to give you your salisberry steak, it's back behind the counter." "But I didn't order that today." Stan replied with puzzlement. Cartman immediatly tried to take advantage as usual. "Okay, he doesn't want it, so let's not let the great steak go to waste! I could use some more brain food before I use my designated court time for Stan jokes." "You ordered two steaks already, I think your brain's got enough food for today. Stan, come with me so we can get your hungry brain working again." Now Stan was really puzzled because unlike the other adults, Chef wasn't so confusing when he talked about anything, but maybe a steak would do him good before he went back to moping.  
  
However, when they got to Chef's counter, Chef didn't wanna talk about steaks. "Okay children, I got my excuse to talk to you in pricate now, so now let's talk."  
  
"What do we need to talk about, you have to say it now because you won't get the chance after Sunday."  
  
"I know, but I wanna know why you're not saying the things you wanna say to the other children before you go, especially Kyle and Wendy. You haven't been talking to them for the last two days, I would have figured that given the circumstances you'd wanna talk to them as much as possible before, well, the move."  
  
"I know, but....but I can't. I made them sad enough by telling them I'm moving away."  
  
"Kyle doesn't look that sad to me for some reason." Chef answered while looking at the still silent Kyle.  
  
"He'll snap soon enough, why should I help him? I feel horrible enough leaving my best friend and the love of my life behind forever, why should I make it worse by saying all these sad goodbyes?! Why should we have to wrap things up that way, because that's how it's gonna end up!" Luckly no one else really heard Stan's outburst, but he was getting his anger out so he didn't really care if they did. Chef was able to stop him before he got any more anger out though.  
  
"I know what you mean, children, but that's why I wanted to talk to you. It's because they've been so important to you that you can't just ignore them for the last few days you got here, they've meant too much to you over the years for you to do that. I know that and I also know you know that too."  
  
"I know. I know." Stan went on with more sadness in his voice. "But what can I possibly do? I can't say goodbye to them and not cry my eyes out over it, how can I get around that?"  
  
"Well you don't really have to do that until Sunday. So why don't you pass the time until then by actually having fun with them?" Stan gave Chef a confused look on his face, so he continued in an effort to get rid of it. "Saturday's your last full day here, and you don't have to go to bed early for school. I think you can use up all that free time by having one last day of fun with Kyle and Wendy, you can do all your favorite things one last time before you have to face facts that it'll be the last time you do them."  
  
"My Mom and Dad are setting up a going away party on Saturday night, they're inviting all their friends and all my friends. I guess I could do all that there."  
  
"No, I don't think you wanna spend your last moments with them around all the other annoying children, especially Eric. Besides, the night's the best place for romantic dates, and you wouldn't wanna leave without having one more of those with Wendy, you got me?"  
  
"I...I think so. So what am I supposed to do again?"  
  
"You're not supposed to do it, I think you more or less have to. I know you're nervous about having to face them, but if you just leave without having one last series of good times with them you're gonna feel even more worse than you are now, I know it. This way you leave them, but at least you shared some last lasting memories with them with fewer regrets than you would have had if you didn't." Stan began to understand a bit now what Chef was getting at. And he sure understood how lucky he was to know one sane adult in this town that actually knew something, that was for sure.  
  
"Okay, I'd better get back to eating my lunch now. At least I got something to think about other than being sad, like planning out my last day here. Thanks for hallucinating that I ordered a steak today, Chef." Stan repliyed with his first real smile in a long time.  
  
"No problem, although I'm sure gonna miss doing that with you when you're gone." Chef answered before he patted Stan on the back and sent him off to eat his lunch and make his plans. And make them he did.  
******************************************************  
It all came to Stan from the time lunch ended to about the time Cartman's designated time of last minute Stan jokes was over. Then when he went home he was able to talk his parents into letting him not attend the going away party on Saturday. Hell, they were taking him away from his home, the least they could do was let him spend his last night here the way he wanted, and they agreed. Now the only two problems left for Stan were to talk to the people he wanted to spend his last day with and get their approval for his plan. He would start out with Kyle.  
  
Stan went over to Kyle's house and knocked on the front door. He was answered by Kyle's mom, who told him Kyle was sitting on the couch while looking a bit uneasy herself about seeing him, considering that he and the Marshes would be leaving town in mere days and her son was losing her best friend while she and Gerald would be losing friends of their own in Sharon and Randy. But she still let Stan in and went to tell Kyle that he was here.  
  
Stan walked in and saw Kyle on the couch just flipping through the channels on TV. Once Stan got there, Sheila decided to leave the kids alone. Stan then sat down next to his still quiet friend.  
  
"Kyle? Kyle? Look Kyle, I know you can hear me and you know I wanna talk now." Kyle still didn't answer. "Look Kyle, I didn't ask for them to make us move away, it just happened. But it wasn't their fault that I haven't come over since then, I'll give you that if that's why you're mad. But now I'm ready to talk." Finally Kyle came out of his shell to answer him.  
  
"You want to talk? Okay, we'll talk. I just found out that my best friend since almost forever is moving away, and that I won't have anyone to back me up in Cartman insults or to defend me from his insults anymore. But more importantly, I found out that after Sunday I'll never get to save the world or have any kind of fun with my best friend again. Plus if I ever get some kind of disease or almost get killed by a crazy magicans cult or come close to dying from hemmeroids I won't have him there to save me like he's done twice before, so I guess I'm a dead man then! What else? Oh yeah, it seems like he doesn't even wanna hang out during the last days we have left, but that's okay because even if he wanted to talk to me after he left how long would that last? All kinds of friendships end after they become long distance relationships, the chances of us saying friends for months or even years after you left are pretty slim, so what's the point? This is how our friendship, the best one any kid could ever have and one that made him feel like he had a second brother is bound to end I guess, what's to stop it? You sure didn't give me any answers lately, are you just feeling obligated to give them out as a last fling, is that it?!"  
  
Well, Stan figured he was gonna come out swinging eventually, and there it was. But that ending to it was kind of an insult, though it seemed that Kyle saw that even sooner than he did. He immediatly tried to calm down to apologize though. "I'm, I'm sorry Stan, I d-didn't mean that. It's just, well, it's just...." Kyle didn't even bother to continue as he just looked shook up, so shook up that you couldn't even imagine that he had spent the last two days being so quiet and keeping all this agony bottled up inside. Well, if ever there was a time to get this plan out in the open, Stan figured it was now.  
  
"I'm sorry I didn't come by earlier Kyle, you know if I wasn't so mad about this whole thing myself I would have. But I wanna make it up now."  
  
"H-How, this time next week you'll be gone forever!" Kyle managed to get out.  
  
"I know, but before then we still have time to have some fun together. I talked with Chef and my parents, and I figured out that I shouldn't spend my last Saturday afternoon inside packing up my things and getting ready for a going away party. I should spend it with my friend, and I wanna do just that."  
  
Kyle started to calm down a bit as Stan started to spell out his plan. "How's this for a last Saturday? After I wake up and eat my breakfast I'll come over to your house. Then we can go out on the town together and do all of our favorite fun things we've come up with over the years. And the catch is, we do it for the whole afternoon. I'm talking about an entire Saturday afternoon of just you and me doing all our favorite things together. This way at least we have some fun before I go and we both don't kick ourselves in the ass for the rest of our lives because we didn't."  
  
"The whole afternoon? Just the two of us? But what about Cartman and Kenny, what if they wanna say goodbye by spoiling it?"  
  
"They won't, I'll say goodbye to them some other time. And I talked Chef into making sure Cartman and Kenny are too busy doing chores for him on Saturday for them to bother us. He'll offer them money to do stuff for him and since Cartman's a greedy, lazy fatass, he'll do the jobs and make Kenny do most of the work while he gets the money. He'll be too busy thinking about buying another theme park to bother us."  
  
"But what about Wendy? You gotta say goodbye to her too."  
  
"Well duh, dude, I'm gonna work that out with her in a little bit. But first I gotta make sure my last afternoon here is set before I set up my last night.", Stan said.  
  
"That sure is a fancy way of saying you're going out with her when we're done."  
  
"It is, I must have got all those smart fancy words from you. What do you say, maybe I can pick up some more fancy words later on, I have all Saturday afternoon to get it out of you. Don't I?" Kyle didn't answer for a second and so Stan continued on. "Come on Kyle, I wanna have one last day of mindless fun with you and I know you do too."  
  
"Well....you really do know me that well, don't you?" Kyle answered with a rare smile, which obviously meant he was ready to go along with the plan. "Okay Stan, you're on. If it's a last day of best friend fun you want, then just remember if it gets too rough that you asked for it." Kyle paused and laughed a bit. "Geez, I'm sure glad Cartman wasn't here to say that that sounded gay because he thinks we're gay. Remind me to thank Chef for keeping him away on Saturday so he won't get the chance then either."  
  
"Sure dude. Well, I gotta go see Wendy to get Saturday night ready, but um, I don't have to go right away so, well, you think you could stand to watch the rest of that old Terrance and Phillip rerun with me before I go?" Kyle just smiled again at his friend's question, so since that probably didn't mean no, he watched the show and laughed at it with Kyle as if things were as normal as ever. And after that refreshing escape from reality, he headed off to see the only remaining person left that he had to talk to today.  
******************************************************  
The sun was gonna be going down in an hour or two. But why should Wendy Testaburger care since she hadn't noticed anything sunny or anything else resembling happiness in about 48 hours? She was in her room right now going through a picture album of hers and trying to remember more sunny times, but the more she remembered them, the more dark her mood got of course.  
  
She was looking through the section of her scrapbook with pictures of her and Stan. The order these pictures were put in pretty much described their whole relationship, the first few pages of pictures had Stan throwing up, about to throw up, or had him recovering from throwing up. But the next few pages of pictures taken recently had him smiling with her, laughing with her, and a few had him holding her hand and had his arms around her. Like the progress of these pictures, Stan had evolved from being sick about love to finally being comfortable with it and with her. But now.....but now he wouldn't have any more chances to prove it.  
  
Wendy closed the book and lay down on her bed, trying to avoid having another fit of tears. For some reason, she couldn't help but remember all the times she had treated Stan in a less than perfect way. The time during Halloween where they were supposed to dress as Raggedy Ann and Andy, but she decided to dress as Chewbacca without telling Stan, which made him the laughing stock of the school and made him wish she was dead. The only good thing was that he didn't go through with that wish when she became a zombie later on. There was the time during the Canadian/American War where she fell for that British fairy Gregory just because he was overly smart and political, which made her ignore Stan until he helped sav the day. And with that, she couldn't help but think about all those other times she got mad at Stan for not caring about politics and the issues she took almost too seriously. Then there was that horrible time she was paired for the school flag debate with Cartman and became attracted to him, then she had to kiss him to get it out. The worst part of it was that she wasn't even concerned that her attraction would hurt things with Stan, she wasn't even thinking of him at all. All she cared about was that it would get in the way of that stupid debate, she didn't mention Stan once because of that. That was the thing she most regretted- until the incident where Stan took a maturity drug to impress her that wound up almost killing him. Kyle sure let her have the blame for that one until she was able to save Stan. After that though, she didn't need any more lessons on taking him for granted. So what if he was mixed up and in some ways just a typical male, she loved him and that was all that mattered. Especially since he forgave her faster about the aging incident than she forgave herself and wound up curing himself of vomiting after all.  
  
But now that he was almost gone from her life, she had to go back to thinking about all those rotten times before. Thanks in part to his vomiting as well as her being an overbearing uptight bitch sometimes, they had wasted many an opportunity to be romantic until it finally happened. And now it appeared that their fun over the last few months was a case of it being too little, too late. Maybe if she was able to handle things better before he was actually cured, he might have been cured sooner and they would have had more time to be together. But thinking about what might have been and the things she did do incorrectly was all she was able to do now. In 3 days she wouldn't have a boyfriend anyone, so how else could she pass the time?  
  
Wendy's latest crying fit was therefore about to begin before she heard her mother calling. Apperantly Stan was here in the house and he wanted to talk to her.  
******************************************************  
Stan waited for his girlfriend in the living room of the house until he finally saw her coming that. With that, her mother left them alone just as Kyle's mom left him and Kyle alone an hour earlier. Now that he had gotten through this with Kyle, Stan figured he should say the first words this time before Wendy got emotional.  
  
"Wendy, I don't wanna leave here any more than you want me to go. But it wasn't my decision to make. So yeah I have to go, but I don't see why I can't make my last day here special, and by spending my last night here with you, there's no way it couldn't be."  
  
Wendy was a bit puzzled so Stan went on to put the puzzle together. "You know how when I was still throwing up you wanted us to be more fancy and cultured and all that high society stuff when we tried to go on dates? Then after I got cured you said I didn't need to be that classy, we could just have normal fun on dates since we'd have plently of time to be fancy. Well now that's not gonna happen, so I figure we could try that thing while we still have the chance."  
  
"Try what?", Wendy finally spoke up.  
  
"My idea is, Saturday night is my last night here, so I want to spend it having the kind of night out with you that you always wanted to have until 4 months ago. We can dress up and go to a nice, regular resterant instead of going to the Happy Burger for dinner. Before that we can go see a movie even if it isn't a big blow things up movie, it can be one of those serious movies you like. But I do insist that after we have that dinner and movie, we go over to Starks Pond to spend the rest of the time we have in any way we want."  
  
Wendy of course, saw the signifcance in that, since Starks Pond was where Stan had talked to her without throwing up for the first time. It was also where they had their first real kiss after all the aging and anti aging drugs were taken out of him. Now he wanted to wrap up an actual romantic date there- but she had to remember a few things that were in the way. "Wait a minute, I thought your parents were holding a going away party Saturday night."  
  
"They are, but I talked them into letting me miss the party to be with you. I also made them give me some money so I could pay for everything."  
  
"But what about Kyle, you have to say goodbye to him too."  
  
"I'll have done that already by the time we leave. This is how I'm saying goodbye to you guys, I'm spending the whole day with Kyle and the whole night with you. I can't think of a better way to leave than spending the whole day with the two most important people in my life. I was hoping that after you said yes we could look in the papers and pick out a movie and a resteraunt to go to, but if you're still too sad I guess I could go to my parents party."  
  
"Oh Stan....you really don't know me that well do you? Why else would you think I could possibly say no to you? It's a date!" Stan perked up and now was happy for the first time in quite a while, now that his final fun filled day was all set. "Great! I guess now we can pick out where we're gonna go before we head for Starks Pond one more time!"  
  
"I was gonna spend the rest of the afternoon moping and crying, but that does sound like a lot more fun."  
******************************************************  
So now it was all set. On Saturday, Stan would do all of his favorite things with Kyle during the day, and have the romantic date that Wendy had always wanted at night. At least it would be better than just ignoring them as a goodbye, though of course the whole day could just make Stan even more sad to leave them behind. But he owed them that much to go out and spend his last hours here with them anyway.  
  
Friday was Stan's last day in school, and the last day he would spend with many of his classmates since he wouldn't be seeing them at the going away party. Some of the more touchy feely kids like Butters and Pip were more emotional in saying farewell, while on the other end of it Mr Garrison and his alter egos were desperatly trying to get some final hurtful jokes in about him. Cartman had even given up his insult time since he was too excited about making Kenny do chores for Chef so he could get money on Saturday afternoon, but even with that times none of Mr Garrison's personalities could come up with anything good to say. Stan hated to admit it, but he would miss Mr Garrison and his crazy friends, if only to see those times when he flipped out in a funny and not totally insane way.  
  
Anyway, back at home all of the Marshes things were either packed up or ready to be taken onto the moving truck for California. Also, the preparations for the Marsh going away party tomorrow night were almost done. Though Stan's parents wished that Stan would actually be there to see the results, they did kinda have to let him spend his last night the way he wanted to so he wouldn't be too sad during the trip to their new home. And Stan went to bed in his all but torn apart room for the next to last time in South Park with said last day and night all planned out.  
  
Saturday morning then came about and Stan got up to eat breakfast and watch cartoons at home. Then when he was done with that he got dressed and headed over to Kyle's house to begin his last time with him. When he opened the door to his house, however, he couldn't find him anywhere. He looked around for a while until something that always scared him half to death seemed to jump right at him- a snake. He screamed and fell to the floor and would have backed away more if he didn't see Kyle holding the snake- the rubber snake, as it turned out. "Jesus Christ Kyle, you trying to stop me from moving by killing me or something?!"  
  
"Sorry, I couldn't resist getting the pranks out of the way. Now that I've had my fun scaring you, we can do stuff we both enjoy. Hold on a second, let me get my bag of toys first." Kyle went away but not before he dropped the rubber but still scary snake right on Stan's stomach, and Kyle was able to laugh again as Stan tried to get it off him. Finally he had enough fun to end the joke and get the snake off so they could start the day.  
  
First up was a game of spoofing the reality game show "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!" where they had action figures of B-list or annoying A-list celebrites that didn't get massacred during the Mothers Day brawl at the gym. The game pretty much consisted of burying the figures or trashing them, and when they picked a celebrity to vote out, they set it's head on fire with a magnifying glass. Cruel yes, but those celebs gage up all their dignity to be in that show, so they were fair game to make fun of by trashing them.  
  
The next activity didn't have as much Hollywood satire in it, actually it more or less consisted of Stan and Kyle beating the living piss out of each other in a snowball fight. They went the whole nine yards to do it too, they had the fort, the hundreds of snowballs, the white flags of surrender Stan didn't use for an hour and a half until he gave in, everything. They were almost too exhausted to make faces against the glass of an excercise clinic building, but they were able to get that done.  
  
They fit in a few other activities like catch with a football, acting out their favorite Terrance and Phillip bits, and when Kyle found out that Ike had snuck out of the house to follow him, he and Stan took turns in Kyle's favorite game, "Kick the Baby" Finally they went back to Kyle house a bit tired, but not tired enough to not fit in a game of "Investigative Reports with Bill Curtis" and then play one more round of Okama Gamesphere, which Stan had arranged to have hooked up in Kyle's house last night so they could play it here and not disturb the party preperations at home. By the time this all ended, it was around 5:30.  
  
At around that time Sheila interrupted the boys blood thirsty video game war. "Boys, I think you'll have to wrap up your blood games now, it's almsot time for Kyle to have dinner." Stan then shot up and noticed what time it was. "Holy shit, I gotta get home and get ready for Wendy, the movie starts in 45 minutes!" Kyle slowly got up and turned off the game console, knowing that the fun was now over and the inevitable farewell ceremony would have to start now. "Mom, I hope you're not that mad about him using bad language that we can't give it to him now."  
  
"I'm not that mad yet, so we'd better do this quickly. Gerald, it's time!" Kyle's dad Gerald then sprung into the scene holding a wrapped box of some kind. After that, all the Broflovskis[except for the recovering from being kicked around Ike who was outside]stood in front of Stan and Sheila was the first to explain why. "Stanley, we've heard that you won't be attending your parents going away party tonight, so that means we won't be seeing you there when we go. So since this is probably the last time we'll get to see you, we might as well give you our going away present now."  
  
"My what?" Stan was confused but she did say the word present, he wasn't crazy to ignore that. So he took the box and tore off the wrapping paper on it to reveal what the box really was. "Oh my God, is that-" Gerald interrupted to confirm Stan's shock.  
  
"Yes it is, it's a limited edition football literally autographed by John Elway himself, he was only able to sing a few hundred of them before his more fanatical followers nearly tore his head off to meet him. And after we all chipped in and put our money together, we were able to get one of them."  
  
"You all chipped in?", was all the still stunned Stan could say in the presence of this dream ball. Sheila then found room to explain things further.  
  
"That's right, Stan. You've been Kyle's best friend for as long as we can remember, you've been there for him when we weren't able to or when we couldn't do anything. If it wasn't for you, he'd be dead twice already from diseases and hemmeroids. This present is the least amount of thanks we can give for all you've done for my son and for all the years of friendship you've given him. This is our way of saying thank you, and that it's not just Kyle that's really going to miss you. We all are."  
  
"Wow...thanks.", was all Stan could say to the Broflovski family.  
  
"Well Stan, I guess you gotta go get ready for your big date tonight. I'll walk you to the door."  
  
Stan nodded to Kyle's suggestion and prepared to go with his new present. Before he left though he found time to shake Gerald's hand goodbye and try to keep on breathing as Sheila gave him a smothering hug much like the ones she gave her real son. After he caught his breath again, he and Kyle headed outside and closed the door.  
  
Now came the hard part of telling Kyle that he had to go seconds before he actually did. Kyle gave him a few more seconds of peace by speaking first though. "I guess that's it then. That's one part of your perfect final day down. I just, well, I just hope Wendy has as much in part two as I did in part one."  
  
"Kyle....look Kyle, you know how I always get beat up by my bitch sister? Of course since that happens all the time you'd guess right that I wish sometimes that I had a brother. But brothers can be pains in the ass too and bully you around or drive you nuts too. Ike sure taught you about brothers being annoying, I guess. But, well, if I ever had a brother that wasn't a bully or like a Melvin, I'd want him to be like, well...." Stan struggled to get the last few words out as emotions were starting to take him over for the first, and certainly not last, time today.  
  
"Stan?"  
  
"Just...thanks for today Kyle, just...thanks. Thanks for everything."  
  
"No problem dude, it was fun." Kyle held out his hand and Stan high fived it, but he didn't let it go right afterwards. Finally Stan did the only thing logically left to do as he gave a goodnight, and in many ways, goodbye hug to his best friend and brother, Kyle. After about 10 seconds, he finally pulled away and the now near emotional Kyle got the last word in. "Good luck tonight dude. Be sure to tell me about it before you go tomorrow." Stan could only nod and give a very very small smile as he almost obliviously walked away and headed for home, leaving Kyle behind to start another sad spell.  
  
After a minute, Kyle headed back inside and looked out his window to get one more glince of Stan, but he couldn't find anything of the kind. As he turned around, his parents came over to comfort him. "Oh bubbie, I'm so sorry." Sheila started as Gerald put his hand on Kyle's back to say sorry.  
  
"Thanks guys. I'm still real worried about Stan though. He looked like he was ready to cry before he left, just think how he's gonna feel when he has to say goodnight to Wendy. He nearly cried after saying goodbye to his best friend and he loves her, so he might not stop crying for a week after he leaves her." Kyle's parents could only nod, knowing that his prediction could very well be true. And they sure hoped California meant that much to the Marshes if they were gonna let their son go through all this just to be there.  
  
"Well, I guess we'd better start getting ready for the party." Gerald said with a sigh. "I'll see if we can get a babysitter lined up for Kyle and Ike on short notice."  
  
"No Dad, I don't wanna stay home for that party, I wanna go there." Sheila jumped in after Kyle made his wishes known.  
  
"Sweetie, are you sure about that, cause you already went through enough reminders of Stan going away."  
  
"It's okay Mom, I'll save being sad about it again till tomorrow. Besides, someone has to warn Stan's parents."  
  
"Warn them about what?" Gerald asked his son.  
  
"I know they're not bad people just because they're taking Stan away, so they should know. Stan's gonna hate them for a real long time after tonight, so I think they have a right to know that."  
******************************************************  
During the next half hour, Stan went into his house and briefly said hello to his busy parents, then searched through the only clothes he hadn't packed up yet for something to wear. He settled for wearing a brown shirt and tie like the suit he wore in church. After making sure he looked perfect enough, he said bye to his parents and walked over to Wendy's house. And before he got there and knocked on the front door, he remembered to feel lucky that although he threw up every other time Wendy wore something nice, he probably wouldn't be able to do that anymore. But when the door opened, he sure couldn't help but be thankful for that small miracle.  
  
Before the aging incident, Wendy had always had her nice dresses thrown up on whenever Stan saw her wear one, so she wasn't that keen on wearing them after a while. But now that it wasn't a problem and since this was the night to go all out because she wouldn't have another chance to do that with Stan, she had picked her most dazzling purple dress to wear for the evening. And not only did Stan not throw up, she even started giggling when she saw how much Stan was blushing at her. In fact, Stan was barely able to get the word "Hi." out because he was so taken by her. Finally Wendy stopped laughing to say, "Well, it was your idea to dress up, so this was your own fault. Besides, by looking at you I can tell it was a real good idea." "Heh, I'll say." Stan finally got out as he managed to calm down. Eventually he was controlled enough to take her hand as they started walking to the movie theater. They would get the movie out of the way now, then have a late dinner, then they would hang out at Starks Pond to end the night.  
  
They got in the theater at 6:15, just in tiem to catch the beginning of their movie, "X2", the superhero sequel to "X-Men" Stan had his fun gasping at all the exciting action and special effects- while not trying to think too much about Halle Berry or that Jean Gray chick in the process- while Wendy was having a little bit of a swoon over that Wolverine fellow, but not too much so to not remember who's company she was in. They held hands frequently and held them tighter during the really exciting parts, and more than once Stan thought of moving in and kissing her right then and there. But he was looking forward to seeing this movie in any situation, and it was too loud for them to really get in the mood. Better to save that stuff for Starks Pond and make sure the best was truely saved for last.  
  
After the more than two hour movie ended at 8:30, the couple headed for the local fancy resteraunt for a late dinner. Since Wendy wasn't a big fan of eating meat, she had a salad and whatever other non meat products there were that were appetizing to her. Stan knew he couldn't have any of the tasty meat products so he was forced to order a salad too. He also ordered several glasses of water to drown the weird taste of salad down. Wendy was easily able to notice him drinking it all in a flash, while not struggling with using proper utensils.  
  
"Stan, you don't really have to eat all that if you don't like it. I mean, you did eat a whole bag of popcorn at the movies, you must be full."  
  
"I am a little, but I might as well learn how to learn to eat this stuff and use these forks before I go. Hell, they might use this all the time in California, so I might as well be prepared."  
  
"Well I learned my lesson about making you think you had to do things just to impress me, it's not a mistake I'd like to repeat."  
  
"No, I want to do this. Since we're not gonna be able to have these kind of dates when we're older, we might as well find out what it's like now. It's sure better than some of the other dates we were on in the past, you gotta admit that." Wendy had to agree about Stan's theory.  
  
"Yeah you're right, before people would have laughed at how messy my dress was 4 times by now at this point."  
  
"It was pretty messy, wasn't it? I thought I found an old piece of pizza in that vomit one time."  
  
"Oh yeah, I remember that, you threw that up on me after I tried to kiss you under the mistletoe after the third grade Christmas play." Stan laughed at that memory.  
  
"That wasn't even the largest thing I threw up, now that I think about it! I think I threw up a really huge meatball I had for dinner the night before one time!"  
  
"That was after the Valentine's Day dance last year, it nearly put my eye out!" Wendy answered without any hint of being upset, in fact she was laughing too. "I thought I even saw a toy tire in one of those vomit piles that night!"  
  
"Oh, that was what happened to that toy tire I swallowed when I was 4!" Both Stan and Wendy laughed although the other patrons in the resteraunt were starting to get sick from all the talk of vomit. The couple weren't however, since that problem didn't exist for them anymore they could laugh at it now. And they did while also talking about a couple of incidents that didn't involved vomiting for the rest of the dinner. Before they knew it, they were done eating and after paying the bill with the money Stan's parents gave them, there was just one more thing left for them to do.  
******************************************************  
Meanwhile, speaking of Stans parents, they had started to entertain all the parents and other crazy people of South Park for their going away party. All of the kids except for Stan and Wendy were there, and all of their parents were there too along with a few other miscellanious adults and friends. This was Randy and Sharon's own way of saying goodbye to their close friends, and it was going okay so far. As the other kids and adults were chatting amongest themselves, at this time the Broflovskis were the ones chatting with the Marshes in the kitchen.  
  
"So Randy, heh, hell it's still pretty hard to believe you're going away." Gerald started. "Are you sure you're gonna be better off there than you are here, it's not like you had any urgent debts or problems here to get away from."  
  
"Which makes it the perfect time to leave now before we do. Hell, I earned the right to do this, all my hard work in keeping track of the earth has led to me being recognized for it by the big boys. And for that, we're gonna be living the warmer, higher life that we and our kids deserve." replyed Randy.  
  
Sharon followed by saying, "That's right, it's not like we hated any of our time here, in fact we feel lucky to have made so many friends that came here tonight, including you guys. We'll miss that for sure, but we can't let a profitable and more livible opportunity like this pass by."  
  
"Even though Stan might hate you for it?" asked Kyle as he arrived into the kitchen.  
  
"Kyle, I thought you said you weren't going to yell at them, that's why we let you come here." Sheila warned.  
  
"Mom, I'm not gonna yell at them, I said I was just gonna warn them." Kyle then turned his attention to the Marshes. "Mr Marsh, Mrs Marsh, you know that Stan wasn't that happy about this move, right?"  
  
"He's not that happy now, but he will be once we get there and he sees the sun and beaches."  
  
"I'm not so sure, Mr Marsh. You know he wanted to spend the whole day with me and Wendy, he's with Wendy right now as we speak. He wanted that because I'm his best friend and Wendy's his girlfriend, so we mean a lot to him."  
  
"We know, and we're not insensitive to that. We know he's really gonna miss you two and it's gonna take him a while to get over it, we understand that."  
  
"I know Mrs Marsh, but I think Stan's gonna remember it too well. He almost cried when he said goodbye to me today, and I'm just his best friend. On the other hand, Wendy's the only girl he's ever really liked and he had just started to get somewhere with her before this. He liked her before, but now that he can't throw up anymore he really loves her, and I know he's gonna miss her too much after he says goodnight to her. Maybe enough to start hating the people that made that ending possible."  
  
"Wait a minute!" Randy objected. "Are you saying he's gonna hate us for taking him away?"  
  
"That's ridiculous, all we've done is try to give him a better place to live! Besides, he can still write to you guys and keep in touch, we didn't outlaw him from doing that!" finished Sharon.  
  
"I know, but it just wouldn't be the same to us or to him. I know Stan, and I know that after finishing up with Wendy, it sure as hell wouldn't be as much fun to just talk to her instead of being with her. The same goes for me and him too, just writing to each other is no comparison to actually playing together."  
  
"Ha ha ha, Kyle sounds like a gay Jew, Kyle sounds like a gay Jew because his boyfriends leaving!" called out Cartman from another room.  
  
"Dammit, now I gotta shut him up!" Kyle started to leave before he got in the last word with the Marshes. "Look, I know you wouldn't make him sad on purpose, I know you love him and hate to see him sad. That's why I wanted to warn you that he might have already had too much last minute fun with us for him to remember that, and you don't wanna move away with him feeling like that. I know that if I had a kid someday and he hated me for taking him away from the only home he ever knew and the two people he cared about more than anything, it'd be better off for us if we never moved at all. Especially since the only reason you seem really ready to move is because you're gonna make more money." And with that, Kyle left to deal with Cartman and to leave the Marshes to think about the possible truth of his words.  
******************************************************  
At around that time, Stan and Wendy had arrived at the site of the hyped up finale of the evening- Starks Pond. We already went over the special times shared in the past between them, so now the only thng left to do for them was to make one final new memory. Of course Stan knew that with the moon and the stars out in full force tonight, an activity involving saliva would have to be included. But what else could they do? Since he didn't bother to think of any other things to do here, Stan was starting to worry about what else to do to keep busy before the night ended. Fortunatly, it turned out Wendy had thought ahead.  
  
"Stan, I have a confession to make. I was already here before you showed up tonight. Not with anyone else, mind you, it's just that I had to make sure the equipment would be here so I wouldn't have had to carry it the whole night." As Stan tried to piece together what that meant, Wendy went behind the tree that lay next to the pond and started digging through the snow. Soon Stan saw that somehow she had managed to bury two pairs of ice skates and a small radio behind the tree.  
  
"What's all this for?"  
  
"Stan, remember last year at the school talent show when Kyle got sick with one of his diseases and you were barely able to ask me to be your partner?"  
  
"Yeah, we already went over that I threw up a whole bag of french fries during rehearsal for that."  
  
"I know, you weren't exactly in the right state of mind most of the time, so I had to write most of the act. Or should I say, most of the song." Stan then remembered the vomit free details of that event.  
  
"Oh right, the song we wrote and sang together last year. You said you were proud that I only threw up three times during that number." Wendy kept the memories going as she started to put on one of the pairs of ice skates while holding the radio.  
  
"That was a better night than I expected, wasn't it? And I got the whole song on audio tape to prove it." To prove that fact, Wendy opened up the radio to reveal an audio tape inside of it. She then closed it and tossed Stan the other pair of ice skates as she started to skate on the pond herself.  
  
"What do I need these for, you know I can't skate as well as you can."  
  
"I know, but you said we had to do some things now before you went and we never had the chance to again. And this is something I had on my mind for a while. Put on the tape and skates and then come over here."  
  
Stan took off his shoes and tied the skates on, then struggled to walk over to the radio and push the play button. As the song began to play, he still struggled to walk but he was able to get onto the pond. Proving that he wasn't the best skater, he nearly fell onto the ice right away before Wendy skated over and caught him. She then helped him stand up straight and then she took his hands in hers.  
  
"Stan? May I have this dance?"  
  
"Are you sure? Cause I might trip or something and..."  
  
"Don't worry, I'll catch you if you fall like you did for me in the song. Speaking of which, we'd better start and let the song speak for itself."  
  
And so Wendy started skating again while holding Stan's hands and letting him try to skate with her. And as this ice dance began, Stan's voice could be heard on the audio tape of the song he had performed with Wendy last year.  
  
Stan: Howdy folks, lets go for a ride/Get your favorite one to sit by your side/Cuddle up in the sleigh/Giddy up Nellie Gray!/And away we go!  
  
Wendy smiled at the sound of her song writing abilities combined with Stan's singing. In the present though, Stan was still trying to keep from falling while trying to actually dance with Wendy at the same time. But he calmed down a bit as he heard Wendy sing on the tape.  
  
Wendy: While you're listening to the sleigh bells ring/You're yodeling to your bay-be/You'll feel nice and warm/No matter how cold it may be!  
Stan: Take a look at little Jack and Jill/They ski down a hill/There's a snow plow turn/Look there's a spill/There's a spill on the hill/When you're down it's a thrill/To get up again.  
Together: Everybody ought to learn to ski/Cause that's how we first met.  
Wendy: We were that Jack and Jill/That came down a hill  
Stan: When I looked at you/My heart took a spill  
Wendy: Took a spill on a hill  
Stan: It's a thrill...  
Together: ..that I can't forget!  
  
That's the script version of the early part of the song, and by the time the title of it was mentioned for the first time, Stan was finally starting to get the hang of keeping up with his dance partner.  
  
Together: It happened in Sun Valley/Not so very long ago  
Stan: There were sunbeams in the snow/And a twinkle in your eye  
Wendy: I remember, oh so clearly/That you nearly passed me by  
Together: Then it happened in Sun Valley/When you slipped and fell and so did I!  
  
At that point, Wendy let go of Stan and seemed to get ready to literally follow the next part of the song. Yep, she started to jump and say the exact same line she yelled in the song, "Catch me Stan!" But like before, Stan couldn't catch her, thiugh at least he didn't throw up as he did in the song, he just let her land on top of him. As Wendy said in the song "Look, Stan! I made a snow angel" Stan barfed in the song, but in real time he got up and looked about ready to throw up from the wind being knocked out of him. Thankfully Wendy was through with stunts for one song and took his hand again to just ice cdance to the rest of the song  
  
Together: I remember, oh so clearly/That you nearly passed me by/Then it happened in Sun Valley/When you tripped and fell and so did I!  
Stan: Now every year we go back and then  
Wendy: We recall that fall and that moment when  
Stan: We were there on the hill  
Together: So we both take a spill/And we're Jack and Jill... again!  
  
Once the song ended, Wendy let go of Stan and he pretty much was too exhausted to stop himself from spinning and falling back down on the snow. He even threw up most of his salad at the same time he threw up in the song. But instead of being grossed out, Wendy laughed a bit at his boyfriends efforts, and Stan chuckled a bit too. Finally Wendy joined him on the snow and they lay down under the tree to catch their breath and look at the moon and star filled sky.  
  
"Wow, look at that. The sky is so large that it really does make you feel small. So small that your own problems don't seem so big in comparison to the big picture.", Wendy started out in her usual thoughtful manner.  
  
"But...it's hard to think about the rest...of the world when you got problems like this." Stan was able to gasp out while finishing in catching his breath.  
  
"Yeah, I guess we couldn't get around avoiding our own problems forever, I sure set that up pretty well." Wendy sighed before she went on. "At least we got in everything we planned tonight, though. But I'm sure that in the next few days I'll be thinking more about the things we won't get to do that would have been more fun. More dates like this, graduating from elementary school together, going to middle school together and going to actual proms, going to high school together and pushing the limits as to how much we can get away with. Then there's college, even more dates where we go even farther and maybe even come close to getting all the way once or twice. Then there's the bragging about those times to our friends, their advice that we should find a date to get married, then I'm sure Kyle would help you pick out a ring that I could show off for the next 30 or 40 years after the big day. Yeah, that sure is a lot to think about in the what could have been department."  
  
It sure was, but maybe if she had even looked at Stan during her speech she wouldn't have been so open to share that info. He was thinking about all the missed events that Wendy mentioned, trying to imagine what they would have been like, and getting more sadder as he imagined every one of them. Now we've already went over all the painful thoughts he'd had over the last 4 days about having to leave his best friend and girlfriend behind. Despite that, he had never actually translated that agony into sad fits or tears of any kind. But now, as he was thinking about all he was leaving behind, all that he'd miss about Wendy and Kyle, and all the things he was gonna miss out on with the love of his life- well, by the end the floodgates had opened. Stan's floodgate of tears that had built up for 4 days without opening had finally cracked through. And once he started crying it took him a whole minute before he was able to talk, or at least try to.  
  
"I don't wanna go away!! I don't w-wanna miss all t-t-that s-stuff and I don't w-wanna miss you and Kyle and e-everything else e-every day for the r-rest of my life!! Even if we can still k-keep in t-touch it wouldn't b-be the same and we b-b-both know it!!" Stan cried for another few seconds before he brung himself to talk again. "W-What if w-we turn into d-different p-people while we're apart and w-we lose touch after a-all? I heard t-that a lot of p-people lose touch with their childhood f-friends and girlfriends and often forget all a-about them! You're t-too important to me t-to let that p-possibly happen, and so's Kyle! And not just you guys, I'd miss everyone! I'd miss Chef, Kenny, Butters, Tweek, Mr Garrison and his friends, I'd e-even miss the fatass!! I don't even wanna leave him behind e-either!!"   
  
Since that last statement really got across how much he hated this move more than anything before, he went back to crying to drive the point home. Wendy was getting pretty close to crying herself, but there was no way she could let it all end with both of them crying their eyes out. In fact, one of them doing that was too many. So the only thing she decided to do was what she did best- help out. And now this meant calming Stan down.  
  
"Stan? Look, I don't know what's gonna happen now either, we might be different people in a few years like you said. But I for one, think we've been through enough to get past that. I know I love you too much to not just drop you like that."  
  
"M-Maybe, but that just would make me m-miss you more. Maybe it would have been better if we didn't start actually being in love before this, maybe if I had never stopped throwing up I'd miss being with you less. Maybe I should have never done anything like this with you at all, then I wouldn't wind up missing you this much."  
  
"You really must be too sad to think straight. But I did think that way too about this a while back, and then I thought it over again and figured this out. I don't regret one moment we spent together these last 4 months because, even if they'd make me miss you more. We resolved all our differences, we got to experience things together we couldn't have before, and we matured more as a couple. You learned not to be so nervous around me and to have fun with me, and I learned not to be so demanding, overbearing, and irritating as I realized I can be. I know I wouldn't have learned to not be so jealous and out of control when you saw other girls if that didn't happen."  
  
"Well of couse you acted that way, it's not like you could trust me back then. I looked at a few other girls, I denyed that you were my girlfriend to the guys a lot because I was nervous and stupid, and how could you not be nervous about how I felt when I kept throwing up on you? I couldn't really be trusted back then, but I can now."  
  
"Exactly. Because of all we've been through, even though you'll be surrounded by all kinds of hot California girls, I trust you enough to resist them now, I couldn't have done that before." Wendy then started to chuckle before she started one of her self hating speeches. "Boy, I could really act bossy and bitchy when you were around other girls and act that way a lot of other times, couldn't I? You know, considering all that, sometimes it's a bit hard to remember what you saw in me in the first place."  
  
"That's ridiculous, do you think we'd be here now if I didn't? Even back then you were the smartest person I knew and, well, the prettiest girl I ever met. You always cared about everyone and everything going on, you were always trying to make a difference in some way, and even then you liked me for who I am despite all my shit. Why else would you have gone pyscho around people that you thought wanted to take me away from you? And even though you could be, well, overbearing, you were smart and good enough to figure it out on your own and be so obssessed with bettering yourself for me, not a lot of people could do that." Stan caught his breath after finishing his latest speech, and they both paused for a while before Wendy spoke up.  
  
"Stan, how were you able to stop throwing up on me after they made you 9 years old again?" Stan took a deep breath before he started his next speech.  
  
"Wow, okay. Well, after I was able to think clearly I heard what the press was saying about you, and Kyle told me how bad you felt because you thought the whole thing was your fault, then he told me everything you went through to get everyone to save my life. I guess afterwards I was thinking that I could have died and that I could be dead anyday from anything, and I found out that I didn't wanna die without telling you how much I like you, no matter what they said about you. I knew then I didn't want to go my whole life throwing up on you all the time and not being able to show you how much I liked you either. So I guess that's how I was able to be brave enough to just fucking show you and tell you all that stuff, or at least be a lot braver than I was before...." With that Stan began to tear up again, though in no way as loud as before.  
  
"Stan?"  
  
"I'm so sorry, Wendy. If I hadn't been such a coward before, I never would have thrown up on you all those times and we could have done all this great stuff a lot sooner. If we just had more time to do it we wouldn't be so sad that we did it all right before I left for good!"  
  
"You wouldn't be so sad, but I would. I hated having vomit on me all the time, there's no secret about that. But all the shit we went through like that and all the other obstacles we faced, well, they were awful but I think they were valueable. If we hadn't faced all that, we couldn't have grown as much as we did and we wouldn't have gotten as close as we did from facing that and the mistakes we both made." She then put her hand on Stan's face. "And aside from you not moving, I wouldn't trade any time I had with you for anything in the world."  
  
Finally Stan began to breathe normally and start to wipe the tears from his face. She was right as always, for all the times she hated the way she acted she always knew what to say at the right time. Now there was only one more thing she had to fix for him. "Is there at least one thing you regret? One thing you regret that we did or didn't do?"  
  
"Well...everything we had left to do has been done tonight. Aside from the recent freakouts tonight has been almost perfect. In fact, there's only one thing we haven't done tonight that would make it perfect- which I'm surprised you didn't already do at the movies."  
  
Stan immediatly knew what she wanted now, and now that they were under the tree, moon, and stars and the crying spree was over, there was no better time to grant her that wish. "Yes....yes I want that. Just let me calm down for another second." Stan wiped the last tears from his face and caught his breath. "Okay, I think I'm ready now."  
  
With that, Wendy moved in and started kissing him right on the lips. Stan got caught off guard the first time and was starting to get in it with her the second time. But by the time she kissed him the third time, he was right in there with her. She put her arms around him and he held her right back, stroking her face and hair as she put her hands on his neck. True, technically 9 year olds were not supposed to be doing this kind of thing and 9 year old boys were supposed to find this sick, horrifying, and wrong. But Stan had had enough of living in fear or kissing and love for one 9 year span- and besides, if terrified kids his age could be in his position of kissing the warm lips and touching the soft and smooth face and hair of the most wonderful, beautiful girl in the whole word, they'd wonde rlike he did why they were so scared to start with. In any case, this make out session went on for over 5 minutes straight before they got tired and pulled their lips apart to catch their breath.  
  
Stan caught his breath while still holding Wendy in his arms as they both lay under the tree. For a brief few seconds everything was perfect for him, he was holding his girlfriend at night after an intense make out session. So what if it was the last one? Wendy was right, every moment had been the right one for them so far. He was actually at peace as he kissed her on the cheek this time- before he saw the watch on her wrist say that it was almost 10:30 at night. She saw it too and knew that the perfect moment was pretty much over now.  
  
"I know. I'll get the radio and carry it home with these skates."  
  
"Okay Wendy. I'll walk you there."  
******************************************************  
The couple arrived back at Wendy's house a few minutes later. Once they got to the front door, they struggled to figure out how to say goodnight this final time. Wendy found a way first. "Stan, even if I don't see you again for years, if at all, I want you to know that no matter how different I become and no matter if, God forbid, I find another guy, nothing's ever gonna change how I feel about you. I love you, and I plan on loving you for a very very long time."  
  
"At least I'm not the only one who feels that way about someone. I love you too, Wendy." Now that the perfect ending lines had been said, it was easier for them to move in and have one last goodbye hug. After a minute, they broke apart slightly and had at least two more last goodnight kisses.  
  
"Goodnight Stan. I guess I'll see you tomorrow before you leave."  
  
"O-Okay. See you tomorrow." It took more willpower than Stan had ever used in his life to turn away from Wendy and head for home.  
  
When he did get home he saw his parents cleaning up the house, and since no one else was around this meant he oviously missed the party. Sharon was the first one to notice her son's return. "Stanley, there you are! You should have called if you were going to be late, we were hoping you'd at least get back in time to say goodbye to your other friends. They all dropped off gifts for you and we hoped you'd be able to thank them in person. They're in your room right now." Stan didn't seem to show much emotion however, he just took off his tux and tie and headed upstairs to change into his pajamas. His parents followed to remind him of tomorrow's schedule, as if he could forget. "Don't forget, the movers are gonna be here at 10 AM and we need to get everything loaded in their truck by noon, so be sure you have everything packed!" Randy called out. But before they could come into his quote unquote "room" to say good night, he closed the door. For some reason, this made them a bit uneasy and kinda reminded them of Kyle's speech earlier, but they shrugged it off and went back down. He'd be okay after he got some sleep and he'd be ready to start a new, bigger and better life tomorrow. Though in this case, a good nights sleep for Stan was a couple of hours since so much thinking prevented him from getting any more.  
******************************************************  
Sunday morning. Moving day. Whatever you wanna call it, it was here to be called. As the Marshes got up and started to make their final packings before the movers arrived, Stan stayed in his room looking at the good bye presents from everyone that he had unwrapped. It was the basic army of action figures and video games, so at least they knew his tastes well. But he was surprised that they took the time to figure that out when he didn't take the time to even say goodbye and thanks to them.  
  
Since he got back home, Stan had tried desperatly to stop thinking about the heartbreak with Wendy, so he tried to think about something else. But he wound up thinking about Kyle and the end of his day with him, so that didn't help his mood. Finally he decided to think about everyone else and about the town itself, which he said at the very beginning he wouldn't miss as much. But after he had spent the whole day around town and after he had gotten the goodbye wishes of all his other friends, he wasn't so sure. After all, this was the town he grew up and experienced all his favorite childhood memories in when he wasn't facing famous people and had to save the town. And though his other friends weren't as memorable as Wendy or Kyle, and he never really was fond of a few people in his class, it appeared they still liked and respected him enough to go to the trouble of saying goodbye with thoughtful gifts. They did that even though he had no plans to notice them in his tear filled farewell to South Park. So there you go, there was a few more things he'd feel terrible about leaving behind, the town he grew up in, and the people that were idiots but weren't bad as far as idiots went.  
  
At 10, the movers showed up and the Marshes began loading their possessions onto the moving truck that would follow them to California. With luck they'd arrive by the end of the night and finish paying for that big house the geologist company had set Randy up with. They did know they'd be done getting everything out of the house by noon, meaning if any of Stan's friends wanted to see him one more time, they had to hurry.  
  
Which is what they were doing at this very moment. Kyle had gotten up late and had to eat his breakfast while barely chewing it, then he called Kenny and Cartman over to come with him to see Stan before he left. Then after he met with them, they went over to Wendy's house to get her to join them. Kyle knocked on her front door and she came out about a minute later with her eyes completly red.  
  
"Whoh dude, what the hell happened to your eyes? Is that the after effects of some hippie poison?" Cartman rudely asked as only he could.  
  
"Even you should know why my eyes are so red!" replied Wendy in a manner that hinted she wasn't in the mood for any of his shit. But of course, he went on anyway.  
  
"Oh yeah, that's right, you have to deal with losing another hippie to the real world. Well, maybe this'll teach you that pussy hippies and hippies that whine and cry about everything in the world don't really mix, and-" Cartman was literally cut off violently as Kyle punched him right in the face to shut him up. "Ow, that hurt!! Since when did the Jew get tough all of a sudden?! Kenny, kick him in the nuts for me!" But since Kenny was still tired from the work he forced him to do yesterday, he didn't move a step. "Fine poorass, let's just get over there before they poison us with their flower power already!" Cartman and Kenny left to get to Stan's house, leaving Kyle alone with Wendy for a second.  
  
"You ready, Wendy?"  
  
"You can tell I'm really not Kyle, but we do have to hurry before the movers get finished and they take him away." Wendy started to sniff and almost start crying again, like she'd done most of last night after Stan left her home for the last time. Kyle put his arm on her to try to calm her down and perhaps calm himself down in the process. They were both losing the best friend they'd ever had today, but better to save their tears for a few hours after they'd actually seen him once more. So they finally moved off to follow Cartman and Kenny to Stan's old home.  
  
They got there at around 11 AM as they saw the movers loading up more of the Marshes possessions into their moving truck. They saw Sharon and Randy there to direct them where to put which possession, but they weren't there to say goodbye to them. Finally they went into the old, almost empty Marsh house to look for Stan.  
  
"Stan, you still here?" Kyle called out.  
  
"He's probably still crying and moaning and yelling I don't wanna go like I heard he did last night." Cartman commented. Wendy was really not in the mood to hear that from him though.  
  
"Cartman, I swear to God, if you want me to use my last remaining contact with Iraqi soldiers to get you on a rocket to the sun, you just keep on insulting him!"  
  
"It's not my fault he's a fucking coward, and let me explain before you even try to hit me! All week you guys kept telling me he's been saying how much he hates moving away, he's been saying I don't really wanna go away and lose the two best friends I've ever had! If that was really true, why isn't he trying to stop it?!"  
  
Cartman took a breath and then continued as not only Kyle, Wendy and Kenny were listening, but unknown to them, Stan was hearing him from the staircase too. "I don't know about him, but if it was me and I liked living here that much, I'd just go tell my Mom that I wasn't going nowhere! I'd actually fight to stay here and keep the friends that I said I liked so much, I'd actually show some balls and stop moaning over all I'm gonna miss and start fighting to keep it! But since peace and love is such a big thing with you hippies, he's just gonna let his asshole parents take him away just for money, didn't you tell me that you thought that's why they took that job Kyle?!"  
  
"Yeah, I did. I mean, from what Stan told me they took that job right away without even asking him what he thought about it." Kyle said while not acting shocked that Cartman was actually making sense. He continued his sense making after that.  
  
"Exactly, and you know Jews know a thing or two about money! Although they have everything fine here and they have no trouble with their current jobs or house, they took the job anyway just to make more money! If my Mom took me away from all my friends and memories just for that, and if I actually liked my friends and memories, I'd stand up and fight to keep them! If I actually liked this place I wouldn' keep saying I don't wanna go, I'd fucking show you already by fighting to stay here!" Cartman caught his breath before he wrapped it up. "You know what, it's too late anyway, if he had balls he'd actually stand up to all this but he's gonna keep moaning and whining anyway and I'm not sticking around to hear that. Tell the pussy good bye for me, I'm gonna go huck rocks at kindergarteners and forget I wasted my time saying some things anyone else that wasn't a ballless hippie would use!"  
  
Cartman turned and left but the guys and Wendy could have sworn that they saw the tiniest hint of sadness in the fatass's eyes. Maybe that long speech was his way of saying that he would actually miss Stan, why else would something he said actually make sense? This shocked Kyle and Wendy a bit, but once they finally saw Stan, Cartman was a million miles away from their minds at that time. Stan got out a small hi to the three remaining kids and they said a little hello back before the predictable uneasy silence occured. None of them knew how to start this final meeting, even after all the big goodbyes last night they weren't ready for the last one, the potential final goodbye they'd ever have. But Stan spoke up and gave his friends more time to think about it.  
  
"Could, um, could you guys excuse me for a minute. I just gotta make sure I didn't leave anything in my room." His friends nodded okay and Stan went back into his now almost empty room. In truth, he had gone over it cover to cover, but they didn't know that so he could use it as an excuse. He then went over and closed the door. As you read earlier, none of the kids knew how to start this last goodbye- and now more than ever, Stan didn't want it to be the last goodbye.  
  
As he locked his door, he was more determined than ever to make that happen.  
******************************************************  
About 5 minutes later, Randy and Sharon were back inside the house looking for any remaining things. The movers had worked faster than they expected, and they'd be ready to go in a few minutes. "Stan, where are you, it's almost time to go!" Sharon stated in almost the same words that I did. Randy started to go up the stairs and saw that Stan's door was closed. Figuring correctly that he was inside, he went towards the room with his wife following him. Once she caught up, he knocked on the door.  
  
"Stan? Are you in here? Did you make sure you didn't leave anything behind?"  
  
"No, everything's gone all right." Stan said through the door.  
  
"Then come out of there son, we're gonna be leaving soon."  
  
"I can't Dad, the door's locked."  
  
"The door's locked?" asked a puzzled Sharon. "Then just unlock it."  
  
"I can't." Stan said calmly. "If I unlock it, you're gonna make me come out and take me away from my home."  
  
"We've got a new and better home now Stan, just come out and we'll go see it." Randy figured that this was just a case of normal moving jitters and that he'd come out then- but his son had other plans.  
  
"I don't wanna see it. And I locked the door so I'll never have to." After hearing this, Stan's parents started to get impatient.  
  
"Stanley, that's enough, open the door please." Sharon asked as politely as she could. Stan then did a terrific job of destroying that civilness though.  
  
"No Sharon, I won't do it! I already told you and Randy, I'm not going!!" Now Stan's parents were getting really upset.  
  
"Stanley, this is your Mom and Dad telling you to open the door, we've gotta get going!" Randy said although he sounded more like he was yelling now.  
  
"No, I'm not coming out as long as you insist on kidnapping me from my home and my friends, cause that's what you're really doing! You never even asked me if I wanted to move away from the only home I've ever known, the only friends I've ever had, and the only girlfriend I ever want to have before you took that job! You just went ahead and took it without caring what I thought, and for what?!" Stan was starting to get angry now, and his parents were neck and neck with him in the anger department. "Stan, open this door right now!! I mean it mister, you can't do this, we're moving for your own good!!" yelled Sharon.  
  
"No you're not, you're moving for money!! You're not moving because this job is in California, you never said that you actually liked that place a lot before! But because this geologists job offered you more money and a bigger house, you would have taken it if it was in some place that wasn't as good! If we had to move because someone was hurt or if it was a real emergency, I wouldn't be that mad, I'd be as sad as hell but if it had to be done I'd go through with it. But you're only moving to make more money, and that's not a good enough reason to leave behind the people I care about and love, that's not even close!!" At that moment, the confused parents noticed that the three kids were next to him and heard everything, and at that moment Randy turned his anger at Wendy and Kyle.  
  
"You two did this to him, you twisted his brain around to make him speak like this to us because you didn't want him to go! No wonder Kyle kept saying Stan would hate us because he wanted him to, this is your fault!"  
  
"No Mr Marsh, we didn't tell him to do this at all but he is making some good points!" Wendy snapped back.  
  
"Look, just tell him to come out, it's not like you'll never see each other again! You can write to each other and even visit, this is not goodbye!" Sharon snapped back before Stan gave an answer of his own.  
  
"But it could be! All you grownups say that childhood friendships and first loves don't last forever, they fizzle out even when they stay together! So what chance would we have if I moved away, huh?! I love Wendy too much to even let that have a chance of happening, and Kyle's been too good of a best friend to let that chance happen too!"  
  
"{Wow, those two got the respect and I'm just standing here without any, what a surprise.}" said the miffled but mad Kenny. But Stan made him feel a bit better by saying, "No Kenny, I'd miss you too and I'd miss everyone and everything else, so I can't let that fizzle out either. And you guys haven't really given me a good reason to, so I'm not coming out until you see that."  
  
"Stan, this is your last warning, open the door or we're coming in!!" yelled a furious Randy. But Stan had one more threat to make that got him to calm down.  
  
"Go ahead Randy, if you get in here and try to take me away I'll just kick and scream and fight my way out! And even if you take me away I'll just run away and come back here! Why should you try to stop me, you're not acting like real parents who should care about what I think before they decide to take me away from my whole life, and dragging me away would be further proof! So go ahead, you've made me mad at you enough already." Sharon and Randy finally calmed down to realize what had happened. Their son had basically disowned them and said he hated them, and they were still yelling at them. They then decided to go back downstairs and think things through- but then they turned to see Stan opening the door and the other kids running inside. Stan then closed the door just before his parents could come in.  
  
"Kids, come out here, you don't wanna get into big trouble from your other parents!" called out Randy. Kyle answered him from behind the door matter of factly.  
  
"Go ahead, my mom might be mad but she'll understand why I'm here, she doesn't think this move makes sense either. We're here to help our friend and make sure you don't take him even if you get in, our parents should understand that and see why." With that, the series of big speeches was over for now and Stan's parents went back downstairs to try to think again.  
******************************************************  
The kids in Stan's room could only overhear what was going on downstairs for the next few hours. First they could hear Stan's parents yelling and panicking at each other, then they heard Cartman's voice. Apperantly Cartman had heard that Stan wasn't coming out, and was willing to be the negotiator in getting him out. From the sound of it, he only said his speech so Stan could lock himself in and Cartman could play negotiator like he did during the baby cows incident. So they had to hear Cartman in front of the door spouting all the stupid negotiator cliches for an hour or two until they heard Shelly coming and yelling that Stan would be dead if he stopped her from going to California and hooking up with surfer dudes. Then for the next few minutes Cartman and Shelly argued over who the negotiator was in this scene, an arguement settled by Shelly's rock hard fists. The Marshes did get her back downstairs though before she could break in, after that Stan, Kyle, Wendy and Kenny went back to hearing the Marshes talk and argue, while Stan kept looking out the window at the movers truck. No one was going inside it to take the stuff back in the house, as long as that wasn't happening he wasn't going anywhere.  
  
But about 4 hours after the standoff began, he could see the movers opening the truck and carrying Stan's stuff back inside. Soon the other kids saw this happining, and they could hear Shelly yelling at full blast anger too. Kyle and Wendy began to smile widely, but Stan wasn't ready for that yet. After another minute they could hear Randy's voice through the door.  
  
"Stan? I called the geologist people in California, and I told them I'm turning down the job after all. You won, okay?" Kyle, Wendy and Kenny began to jump for joy and hug Stan, though he still wasn't in a celebrating mood. "How do I know you're not trying to trick me? How do I know you just did this so I could come out and you could kidnap me?"  
  
"Stan, you know us better than that! We're still pissed off at you for making us cancel the move, but we know when enough is enough. We did a lot of talking downstairs that you might have overheard, and as you can see out the window, we're not planning to go away. We should, but we're not! Now I know you still trust us a little bit, show us that by coming out and you'll see we're serious!"  
  
After taking that in for a second, Stan finally tiptoed over to the door, unlocked it, and opened it to see his father. After an uneasy pause, a naturally uenasy pause considering all the hate Stan threw at him hours earlier, Randy spoke. "Come on, you can come outside and see our stuff being brought in for yourself." Finally Stan walked out and his friends and father followed him outside to see the movers taking everything back inside. After everything was put back in, they saw Randy talk to them and confirm that they wouldn't be coming back because the Marshes were staying. Once the movers went back in their truck and left, the outcome was now confirmed to Stan. They weren't going anywhere.  
  
Stan finally began to smile again as Kyle, Wendy and Kenny started jumping around and yelling out their excitment- though when it came to hugging Stan and kissing him Kyle and Wendy did that more than Kenny, and Kyle didn't do the kissing part. Stan was realived, there was no doubt about that, but when he looked at his dad and his newly arrived mom, another uneasy feeling came inside him from looking at them. This was interrupted by the sound of a battered and bruised Cartman coming out of the house. "Jesus Christ, I try to play a harmless game of negotiator and your Goddamm bitch sister tries to cut me off just because she's gotta get to California! I'm gonna need ice on my head for days!"  
  
"Still not bad for the sister of a ballless hippie, huh Cartman?", Stan taunted, even though it was Cartman's speech that was the last straw in his decision to set up the standoff.  
  
"No, not at all, I'm sure she'd love to show you how not bad she is right now. Shelly, the brother that stopped you from meeting those California hunks is outside for the beating!" Cartman chuckled and groaned at the same time as a furious Shelly came outside ready to kill Stan. So Stan and the others decided to run away and celebrate as Sharon and Randy barely held their other child back.  
  
With that obstacle gone, the three kids spent most of the afternoon seeing the other kids in town and telling them Stan was staying. They were mostly happy to hear that although some of them thought Stan just pretended to move so he could get goodbye gifts from them- though he really didn't have plans to give them back. They chatted away with the rest of the gang for the next hour or two and heard some comments from some of the adults about what they heard happened earlier[One of them had Mr Garrison coming by and praising what he thought was Stan's scheme to get goodbye presents, and warning that he'd have new jokes about that on Monday]But eventually, Stan knew he had to go back home and face God knows what from his family. It was kinda anticlimactic that after all that complaning and crying about leaving, he wasn't going after all, and the fact that the main plot point left was tension with his parents didn't really fit into this story. Still, he decided to head for home to face that, and Kyle and Wendy came with him for support.   
  
They entered the now reorganzied Marsh house just before the sunset. All the furniture was back in place, including the couch which Sharon and Randy were sitting on as they noticed the kids. "Stan, we put everything back in your room and had Ned take Shelly to the gym so she could punch him out instead of you. Just so you know." Randy started out. Stan didn't answer back, but at least he didn't look as angry as his parents could only imagine he did hours earlier. So Randy tried to start the making up process, but he did it by mentioning the bad stuff first.  
  
"Okay, first of all we are mad at you for bullying us into canceling our move. You treated us like we weren't really your parents and you disrespected us, you cannot do this sort of thing again in the future! So when things are a bit calmer we'll discuss an actual punishment for todays actions, you can't think you can do this everything we disagree!" Randy then paused and softened his voice a bit. "Even if you were right to do it."  
  
"Stanley, as wrong as the way you brought this to our attention was, it did make us realize a few things." Sharon continued. "After we were yelling about the cons of you stopping our move, we started thinking about the pros for the first time. South Park is where we all grew up, not just you, and we have all the friends, family, and other people we care about and love here. You obviously valued the friendship and love part more than we did."  
  
Randy turned his attention to Wendy and Kyle as he picked up the slack. "We know how important these two are to you, and I was probably way out of line in thinking they wanted you to turn against us. Hell, if it wasn't for Wendy and Kyle, you'd be dead from rapid again months ago! We're happy every day that you have a best friend like Kyle that's always there for you, and when you're old enough to marry Wendy we'll be as happy as anyone to offically welcome her to the family. And we should have come up with better reasons for delaying that from happining."  
  
It was now Sharon's turn to talk. "Stan, we're sorry we wanted to take you away from your home and friends just because we bought into the glitz and extra money of California. Hell, I objected to the move at first because they had so many natural disasters to start with! But we realize we should have let you have more of a say in our decision before we made it, and we should have realized then that you have too much going for you here to want to move that easily. We have more than enough money to keep providing for us all here anyway, we don't really need anymore. Your home and your favorite people in the world are right here, that should be enough payment for us. And even if you don't trust us anymore, please know that we're gonna be sorry for the rest of our lives for forgetting that. That goes for Kyle and Wendy too."  
  
So with that the Marshes apology was pretty much finished, but Randy wanted to remind Stan about the first part of the talk. "Yes, we know that now, but you know that what you put us through to make us see that was wrong. If we actually have to move for a good reason you know you can't do this thing again!" Stan nodded since he knew that he'd have to say that to him. "Like I said, once you're up to talking to us like we're your family again, we'll figure out an appropriate punishment for you. You don't have to try to be friendly with us right away if you don't want to. But for now you should probably rest up in your room until dinner's ready." Stan nodded yes again.  
  
"Kyle, Wendy, we owe you apolgies too. Can we do that by having you stay for dinner?" Sharon asked.  
  
"No, we should probably both get back home and spend time in our own rooms." Kyle answered, and Wendy looked like she agreed. They then turned to Stan. "Stan, I guess we'll actually see you tomorrow at school, dude." Stan smiled his biggest smile of the day at hearing Kyle's prediction, and he once again nodded yes before he gave his friend a high five. He then turned to Wendy and gave her a big goodnight hug before she went away to go back home. She would sure enter her house with far less crying than she did when she left it this morning, and so would Kyle as he started to head for home too.  
  
"All right Stan, you might as well brush your teeth before I get dinner started, even though you had nothing to eat most of the day." Stan started to go upstairs after hearing his mothers request, but before he finished going up he looked his parents in the eye for the first time and actually said words to them. "Mom, Dad?" They looked up with some relief that he was calling them Mom and Dad again.   
  
"Yes Stan?" Randy asked.  
  
"Thanks, and....I'm sorry." Stan only caught the smiles on his parents faces for a second before he finished going upstairs to his rebuilt room. Things would probably still be uneasy between his and his parents for a while and Shelly would surely keep trying to kill him even more than usual, but eventually it would all be okay. Besides, every day at school he'd be able to forget about his problems by talking to his friends and loved one, as he always did and as he always would.   
  
An outside watcher to this tale would call this a bit of a letdown since after all that crying and all those goodbyes, no one was going anywhere after all, so what was the point? But Stan Marsh had learned something this week, he learned to tresure his time with the special people in his life even more than he did before, so that even if he did have to move eventually, there'd be fewer regrets and he'd be less worried that they might drift apart because with everything he had shared with them, that could never really happen. More proof of that would undoubtly come tomorrow, and he wouldn't have traded that for anything in the world.  
  
THE END  
  
So, was this my best fic ever, was it touching and sad, was it at least worthwhile, or was it overblown, overly sentimental, and overhyped? Whatever you think, please tell me, and I hope a lot of people tell me. 


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